Elementary Particles: A Short History of Some Discoveries in Atomic Physics (The Vanuxem Lectures, 1959)

When in 1957 Chen Ning Yang, with his colleague Tsung Dao Lee, suggested that, in layman's words, the right- and left-handed basic constituents of matter behaved differently, and when experiment confirmed that the laws of nature do distinguish between a system and its mirror image, our knowledge of fundamental physical principles took one of the sudden turns which have characterized its history. Dr. Yang's approach is topical and reflective as he reviews the history of our knowledge of the infinitesimal components that make up the atom. Throughout the book he gives special emphasis to the interplay between the theoretical and experimental aspects of the subject. This approach makes the reader keenly aware of the nature of work in this field, at once full of excitements and frustrations, inspiration and disappointment. The discoveries of the elementary particles are described and illustrated, and a fold-out chart at the end of the book provides a complete list of the particles and their properties for ready reference.